Not really and even then it got praised to the moon by the press.
Just goes to show that the FF series has some of the most unreasonable and annoying fans.
The reasons why it sucks are as follows: It plays like a mediocre (at best) singleplayer MMO that wants to play itself (Gambits) but won't let you let it properly do so until you get pretty far into the game. The Gambit system effectively reduces the gameplay to setting up the gambits (which takes a fraction of the time that you will use them for), running around, and leveling up the characters. This effectively reduces the gameplay to a boring movie.
Huh? Gambits are great because they make sure you don't have to pause every few seconds to select an action. It's more like RTWP but with smart AI than an MMO. You can set up a "self-playing" game with enough effort, of course, but it's entirely your choice to do so. Combat plays great with or without them. I only use gambits for healing and targeting, and do everything else by hand, and that works just fine for me. Your complaint is like saying "Oh combat in HOMMIII is so horrible and boring, I keep pressing Quick Battle/Auto Battle, and the game basically plays itself". Now, FFXII's gameplay is not perfect, but considering the alternatives... I rather prefer not to have my game interrupted every 5 seconds for a random battle, and like to have control over which enemies I fight, when and how. Plus, the game world is pretty much
completely open past the intro, and if you never accidentally ran into an area/enemy that broke your invincibility bubble, then you were likely intentionally railroading yourself.
The side content blows, especially the hunts, marks, and such.
Huh again? What's wrong with challenging optional mini-bosses? I loved it in Last Remnant, and love it here. Makes you go out of your way and tweak your party up to the challenge. Also keeps you on your toes, since rares can spawn randomly when you're not ready at all. Or would you rather have it "play like a boring movie"? Oh wait
Giggles aside, I think aside from the annoying weather system, that's about the best of side-content I've seen from an FF game. Masks the rails just enough, without being an annoyance like cards in FFVIII.
The "main character" was thrown in late in development because the marketing department didn't think that Bosch was appealing enough to the targeted Japanese audience, thus creating the worst FF character to date and his second worst character female companion (Penello).
From where I stand (30 hours in), the game is more story-focused than character-focused unlike most recent FF games. The lead may be weak, but he's not getting an unreasonable amount of screen time compared to the rest of the cast, and the cast isn't a collection of social misfits either. Plus, the story is actually pretty good and the world setting is coherent. And they were right, Basch wouldn't cut it as the lead, especially if they focused on his character. Also, it's debatable whether Vaan is actually a "lead", I could argue that Ashe is more of a lead than he is. Though I guess most fans dislike this because they want another angsty teenager Cloud-copycat and a story revolving around his tragic idiocy. An actual story? Preposterous!
All of the characters end up effectively identical (and only about a third of the way through if you're playing as a completionist) due to a really crappy advancement system.
If you grind your game to death then it's not the game's fault, and you're not playing it as intended. It's like playing FO:NV by shooting everything that moves. I'm bent on doing every side-quest (my definition of "completionist") and I think I'm past 1/3 point, and I haven't gotten even close to unlocking everyone's license boards. So the advancement system seems to work just fine. As for all characters being the same save special moves, well, I'm not surprised since that's what it was like in most FF games to begin with.
The game isn't fully voice-acted.
Doesn't bother me. I'd say quality over quantity. All of the main story line is fully voiced, and voicing all random shopkeepers or one-liner NPCs would've been a waste of time, money, and disk space. Since there isn't an "international" version, I have no idea how the original voices are, but the English dub is actually good for a change. Considering the horrors of, say, FFX dub I've seen on Youtube, perhaps less means better.
You forgot the license system, wich is bullshit.
It's basically a slightly improved copy of the sphere grid from FFX, and you don't see anyone complain about that one.
